Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a board cleaning apparatus and, more particularly, to a board cleaning apparatus which removes foreign substances sticking to the surface of a board (or mold plate, which will be hereinafter referred to as a “board”) for fabricating precast concrete articles using a brush which rotates in a horizontal direction, and in which a suction duct is provided to suck dust particles generated during the removal of foreign substances.
Description of the Related Art
Although precast concrete articles had conventionally been manually fabricated by only a small quantity production method that produced few products, the production method is currently changing to a multi-product batch production method, because there is greater demand for precast concrete articles in the various fields of architecture, public works, or interior/exterior decoration that is taking place alongside the advances in industrialization.
Therefore, a board serving to mold, cure, and move concrete products has been developed which is disposed in the bottom of a mold for continuously casting concrete products so that concrete blocks or bricks can be mass produced.
However, there is a problem in that foreign substances such as a concrete residue get irregularly stuck to the surface of the board which was used for casting the concrete product, so that if the board is reused for the production of the concrete product, the produced concrete product has an irregular bottom, degrading the value of the product.
Thus, in order to solve this problem, an apparatus for removing foreign substances has been developed in which a sharp iron blade is fixed above a board that is moving, or otherwise, as shown in FIG. 1, a brush that rotates about a horizontal axis is mounted above a board that is moving so as to remove the foreign substances from the surface of the board. The apparatus includes feeder sections that are mounted above a base frame at certain distances to frictionally feed a board B, a removing section 40 that removes foreign substances sticking to the board B, and a height-adjuster 41 that adjusts the height of the removing section 40.
However, the blade type apparatus has a problem in that it is difficult to adjust the position of the blade. That is, if the blade is located at a lower position, the board B is engaged against the sharp blade, resulting in the process having to be interrupted or damaging the board. On the other hand, if it is located at a higher position, foreign substances on the surface of the board are not completely removed, resulting in detracting from the value of a concrete product.
In addition, the brush type apparatus has a problem in that it comes into line-contact with the board B, so that foreign substances stuck to the board B cannot be completely removed because of a small contact area and a short contact time. Further, if the feed rate of the board B is slowed down in order to increase the contact time, the production per unit time is reduced, increasing the cost of production. Furthermore, if the brush is worn out, adherence of the brush to the board B is reduced, so that the position of the brush has to be adjusted in order to increase the adherence.
In addition, when the concrete residue stuck to the surface of the board B is removed, a great quantity of dust particles are generated, which deteriorates a working environment and has a bad influence upon the health of workers.